24 to 40 – How I Lost 10kgs in Four Months

Ok, firstly I’ve missed four weeks in my updates oops but yes, 24 weeks until I turn 40! Secondly, thank you to those of you who replied to my newsletter last week asking more about how I’ve lost 10kgs.

Except…if you’re not subscribed to me yet, you can below. You’ll get an email from me every week full of love, unicorns and special subscriber stuff. (ok, not unicorns).

Losing 10kgs – How I Did It

Be warned, long post ahead.

Since the end of January this year, I’ve lost 10kgs.

Before that, I weighed more than I ever have, except for when I was pregnant. Although, to be honest, it wasn’t far off from when I waspregnant!

Quite a few of you have asked me to share how I’ve done it – and I will – but I want to be very clear that I’m not trying to push my views on to you.

Disclaimer: I am not medically trained in any way and if you are considering losing weight, you should speak to your GP first. I am only going to share my experience and my opinions about what has, and has not worked, for me. Some of this is backed up by my medical team’s views and some of this is simply my opinion about my body.

So now that’s out of the way, the reason I wanted to lose weight was that it was making me feel unhealthy and unhappy.

A post shared by Mim Jenkinson (@lovefrommim) on May 5, 2017 at 2:30am PDT

I had put on 10kgs during chemo in 2015 and despite losing most of it, I had started to pile it back on. I tried everything to shift the weight – all of my “go-to’s” from the past.

Previously I’ve tried every diet and eating plan you can imagine – and most have worked for me. The main reason they stopped was that I stopped. I would plateau and give up. Or I would just give up for no reason.

I was a Diet Quitter

Because when it comes to weight loss and exercise, I’m a quitter. Simple as that. I LOVE food – everything about it – but especially how it makes me feel.

I was a typical ’emotional eater’ but for every emotion and I would eat to feel better, to congratulate myself, to commiserate, when I was happy, sad or just a bit bored.

My food choices were fairly good but snacking was my downfall. I would snack between meals and in the evenings, after the kids were in bed, out would come the Maltesters and wine.

I knew I had to stop but I couldn’t. Every time I tried a new diet, I would give it my all and nothing would happen. I knew chemo had messed up my hormones and I’ve been teetering on entering early menopause for two years. I basically had middle-aged spread…at the age of 39.

What I couldn’t really explain to people though was how I didn’t just feel fat, I felt bloated. I looked, and felt, six months pregnant. My face and body felt to me like I was retaining so much water and I couldn’t get rid of it. My body just felt wrong.

I asked my GP if she would recommend some kind of diuretic and she said No. I’m pleased she did now – but at the time I felt sad and miserable.

I thought that no-one understood that I wanted to lose weight but nothing was working. It felt so unfair and I hated that I couldn’t control my own body, let alone my mind.

The Ketogenic Diet

At the end of last year, I started to watch videos on YouTube about the Keto Diet. It’s a low carb, high fat and moderate protein way of eating.

Eating this way changes your body from being fueled by carbs to being fueled by fat. So you burn your body fat, instead of the carbs you’re eating. Therefore, you lose weight.

By ‘fat’, I don’t mean pizza! I mean the good fats you’re consuming.

It was a way of eating recommended to me by friends when I started chemo two years ago but I wasn’t ready to start at the time.

Then, at the end of January, I felt ready. I had read a million and one articles and watched hundreds of videos. I felt knowledgeable and, with my GPs consent, I started keto.

I won’t talk too much in this post about the specifics of the keto diet but let me know if you want me to share any more info for you.

How I did it:

I cut out all starchy carbs such as pasta, bread, rice and even my favourite sweet potatoes!

I started by eating no more than 20g of carbs each day. This is a very small amount compared to my diet of the past.

I increased my intake of meat – specifically grass-fed meat.

I increased my intake of dairy to a moderate level as I wasn’t eating too much before.

I started to do ‘intermittent fasting’. I can tell you more about how I do this in another post if you’re interested?

What happened next?

After just one week on the keto diet, I lost 3.9kgs and I couldn’t believe it! And whereas I knew it was mainly ‘water weight’, that delighted me because it was the water weight I wanted to shift too.

I felt different and my bloating reduced drastically.

In the first month, I lost around 6kgs and it’s kept coming off since.

A post shared by Mim Jenkinson (@lovefrommim) on May 27, 2018 at 12:01am PDT

I used My Fitness Pal to track everything I ate for a while but life got busy and I stopped. These days, I do something called “lazy keto” which is basically where you don’t measure anything except carbs. In fact, I don’t really measure those now.

My weight loss has slowed down over the past few weeks but it’s still coming off so I’m really happy.

PLUS I’VE LOST 34CMS! Yes, it needed the capitals! The loss has mainly been from my boobs, waist and hips.

I don’t feel or look pregnant anymore.

My face is less bloated, I have a chin again ha ha!

How hard was it?

I expected that giving up carbs would be the hardest diet I’ve ever done but strangely, it has been quite easy!

I eat a lot of vegetables, meat and dairy and still allow myself treats in 85% chocolate and dry white wine.

I’ve failed at diets in the past because either they’ve felt too restrictive or I’ve pushed the boundaries too much and squeezed in too many ‘extras’.

You can’t really do that with keto – you’re either in ketosis or you’re not. So I don’t cheat because I don’t want to feel bloated again. This is a first for me – like I said, I’m a quitter when it comes to diets.

2 Comments

Dee

/ 10:08 pm

Hey Mim, hope you are well. Not sure if you remember me, but we worked together at Hudson many years ago. Love reading your posts etc and have just signed up to get more ! Would love to hear more about your Keto diet. Dee